Synthmaster One?

[ZaBong69]

Im having a crash when changing presets (from within the GUI) using bitwig 2.0

Apologies if this has already been addressed

They are working on it.

K

[Elektronisch]

Have anyone seen that you can get both Synthmasters for 96 USD?

http://www.synthmaster.com/

thats a bargain

[Musical Gym]

...resolved

[dcupmusic]

They are working on it.

K

thanks

[dmbaer]

I have read the manual several times, read (tried anyway) to read through this lengthy thread, and watched the videos. I’m left with a few questions. Plus there are a few issues worth mentioning.

Issue: Significant bug in standalone version: hit the escape key and – poof – the synth shuts down with no saves and no warning. I would imagine that behavior is not what was intended.

Confusing behavior (don’t have a remedy to suggest, however). Normally, click in the middle top area where the current page name lives and you get a menu. However, click on, say, the LFO 1 waveform. Click in the upper middle area once again (but not on the left or right arrows) and nothing happens. I did not realize at first that the left and right arrows could be used to navigate next/prev through the LFO waveform selections – I thought this was a bug until I watched the video. Maybe produce the menus unless the next/prev arrows are what is being clicked?

Set the preset to the initial patch and the name of the previous patch remains in the upper middle box. This has been reported by others. Probably easily fixed and definitely should be fixed.

Now, the questions. The documentation is a bit vague on several things regarding importing waves. I infer from what’s in the manual that you get a single-cycle wave imported by virtue of the fact audio in the file is no longer than 2048 samples. More than that and the file is regarded as containing a wave-table, but in that case the file must be a multiple of 2048 samples. So, what is all that business about a file naming convention that denotes the associated pitch of the original sample? If the file is holds a single cycle, then that information is irrelevant. If it’s a wave-table with each entry 2048 samples, same thing. This is confusing. Also, unstated but useful information: what happens if the imported file is other than mono?

Another wave table import question. The manual only talks about the 2048-sample-multiple option for wave files to be recognized as wave tables. In this thread another option involving loop information in the file was mentioned, but that’s not in the documentation. Furthermore I found the explanation of the loop business earlier in this thread to be inadequate – maybe I’m just dumb but I could not understand that at all. This ought to be clarified (explained better, perhaps with an example) and the manual should include that explanation – the manual will probably end up being read by far more users than this will read this lengthy (and ever-growing) thread. Also, it has been pointed out that Serum wave table files can be used in SM1. What quality do those Serum files have that makes this so?

Finally, I haven’t had time to fully explore this yet, but the manual is confusing regarding filter cutoff. The units of cutoff in the filter (as shown in the manual) are not frequencies but numbers that have no immediately obvious mapping to frequency. A bit more explanation on this would certainly be helpful.

I know I’m asking for answers to be placed in the documentation, but don’t let that stop anybody from posting them here as well.

[Fleer]

I'm thinking there might be an upcoming review in SoundBytesMag ...

[dmbaer]

I'm thinking there might be an upcoming review in SoundBytesMag ...

Shhh!!! We don't want to get scooped by the competition.

[Fleer]

They may be faster but never better

[kv331]

I infer from what’s in the manual that you get a single-cycle wave imported by virtue of the fact audio in the file is no longer than 2048 samples. More than that and the file is regarded as containing a wave-table, but in that case the file must be a multiple of 2048 samples. So, what is all that business about a file naming convention that denotes the associated pitch of the original sample? If the file is holds a single cycle, then that information is irrelevant. If it’s a wave-table with each entry 2048 samples, same thing. This is confusing. Also, unstated but useful information: what happens if the imported file is other than mono?

If the file contains a single cycle, the file length can be anything < 4096 samples

if the file contains multi cycles (wavetable), each cycle should be 2048 samples.

There IS a file naming convention because you might be importing a single cycle waveform sampled at different notes.

The manual only talks about the 2048-sample-multiple option for wave files to be recognized as wave tables. In this thread another option involving loop information in the file was mentioned, but that’s not in the documentation. Furthermore I found the explanation of the loop business earlier in this thread to be inadequate – maybe I’m just dumb but I could not understand that at all. This ought to be clarified (explained better, perhaps with an example) and the manual should include that explanation –

You are right, I will explain this in the user manual as well. and when I have time I'll shoot a video about that.

Finally, I haven’t had time to fully explore this yet, but the manual is confusing regarding filter cutoff. The units of cutoff in the filter (as shown in the manual) are not frequencies but numbers that have no immediately obvious mapping to frequency. A bit more explanation on this would certainly be helpful.

I dont understand why more information is needed on that topic. Parameter values are between 0-127 for knobs/sliders in SynthMaster/SynthMaster One. and when you change a parameter, the tooltip displays the actual parameter value as well (for cutoff, frequency in Hz)

[kv331]

Im having a crash when changing presets (from within the GUI) using bitwig 2.0

Apologies if this has already been addressed

Sorry about the delay folks, I'll sort this out hopefuly today.

[keel]

I actually like this synth. Nice sound and good looking gui, but it seems to be buggy as the original crashmaster. Well, too bad. Good luck anyway.

[kv331]

Issue: Significant bug in standalone version: hit the escape key and – poof – the synth shuts down with no saves and no warning. I would imagine that behavior is not what was intended.

Just fixed, v1.0.3 is on the way today.

[kv331]

I actually like this synth. Nice sound and good looking gui, but it seems to be buggy as the original crashmaster. Well, too bad. Good luck anyway.

Which bugs did you encounter so far? did you report them to us ?

[dmbaer]

If the file contains a single cycle, the file length can be anything < 4096 samples

OK, the manual says something slightly different - no big deal but a correction is in order.

There IS a file naming convention because you might be importing a single cycle waveform sampled at different notes.

Perhaps I'm being dense, but I still don't see what's going on here. Are you saying that SM1 does something based on the note information in the file name? I would have thought that a single-cycle waveform would be used for playback of all notes (subject probably to some treatment to deal with aliasing for higher frequency playback).

Granted, if the user intentionally imports a waveform sampled from an instrument at different frequencies, the waveforms will be slightly (or even substantially) different, and it might be useful documentation to name the waveform files accordingly. But does SM1 treat a waveform with a note designation in the name differently from one that has no such designation?

I dont understand why more information is needed on that topic. Parameter values are between 0-127 for knobs/sliders in SynthMaster/SynthMaster One. and when you change a parameter, the tooltip displays the actual parameter value as well (for cutoff, frequency in Hz)

Ah-ha, makes sense now. The manual showed four cutoff curves labeled 30, 60, 90 and 120. I didn't connect that to MIDI value range of 0 to 127. I was also focused on the explanation of the filter's keytracking control, where 16 corresponds to the frequency of the note. That didn't make sense either until I just noticed that one octave higher was 28 which happens to be a difference of 12 - same as one octave difference in MIDI note numbers.

[kv331]

Perhaps I'm being dense, but I still don't see what's going on here. Are you saying that SM1 does something based on the note information in the file name? I would have thought that a single-cycle waveform would be used for playback of all notes (subject probably to some treatment to deal with aliasing for higher frequency playback).

Here's the deal: IF you sampled single or even multi cycles at different notes, you can put the root note information either a) in the wave file name OR b) in the WAV header. We have single cycles and wavetables sampled at multiple notes in our factory library which have file names based on root notes. We also have many wavetables and single cycles which do not contain any root note in their file names/wav header since the same wave file is used across the whole keyboard.

One last thing: Although I frequently check KVR forums, I'd prefer communication over email when you are reviewing our software and have some questions about it.

I will mention more about wavetable/waveform import in the user manual. Right now I have to finish other stuff which has higher priority for SM1 like scaled UIs & AAX support.

Bulent